Ex-RAB CO Tarek Sayeed 'admits' Narayanganj crimes

Former RAB-11 Commander Tarek Sayeed Mohammad, too, has reportedly admitted to his role in the abduction and killing of seven people in Narayanganj after two colleagues confessed to the crime.

Mohammad issued a confessional statement in the court of Senior Judicial Magistrate KM Mohiuddin in the port city Wednesday, Narayanganj District Lawyers’ Association President Sakhawat Hossain said.

He said the former senior RAB official gave the details of the abductions and murders in his statement.

Mohammad is the son-in-law of Disaster Management and Relief Minister Mofazzal Hossain Chowdhury Maya.

Mohammad ‘confessed’ to his role in the multiple murders after being grilled by police for nearly a month. He was arrested on May 17 following a High Court order.

Tarek Sayeed Mohammad was brought to the court under heavy security and secrecy around 8am Wednesday.

After he finished giving the confessional statement around 3pm in the two cases filed with Fatulla police over the murders, the court sent him to jail.

Earlier this month, former officers of the Narayanganj-based elite force Arif Hossain and MM Rana had also given their confessional statements in the same court under Section 164.

Seven men, including Narayanganj City’s Ward-2 Councillor Nazrul Islam and senior lawyer Chandan Kumar Sarkar, were abducted on Apr 27. Their bodies were found floating in the Sitalakhyya River several days later.

Nazrul's father-in-law Shahidul Islam had claimed earlier that RAB took Tk 60 million from prime suspect Ward-4 Councillor Nur Hossain to carry out the abductions and killings.

Three former officers -- ex-Lt Col Mohammad, who was then RAB-11 commander, former Maj Arif and former Lt Commander Rana -- were removed from RAB and sent to their parent forces after the allegation surfaced.

Later, they were sent into forced retirement.

They were arrested after a High Court order and are currently in police custody.

However, Nur Hossain was arrested with two accomplices from an apartment in India’s Kolkata on Saturday.

The absconding Narayanganj councillor has been booked under the Arms Act and Foreigners Act for illegal trespass into Indian territory without valid travel documents and for illegal possession of a weapon.

He was produced in the district court in Barasat by West Bengal Police on Sunday and send on police remand for eight days.

Hossain had gone into hiding after bodies of the seven men were recovered. Since then, families of the victims had alleged RAB had helped him to escape to Kolkata.

But the elite force rejected the accusations.

RAB-11 is situated at Narayanganj’s Siddhirganj, the same locality where Hossain and slain Councillor Nazrul were from.

Nazrul and the six others were abducted from the same area near Shibu Market on Dhaka-Narayanganj link road at Siddhirganj.

Nur Hossain, who rose from being a transport worker to a city councillor, had set up a booming illegal trade of sand and drugs on the banks of Shitalakhyya, police said.

Nazrul, also an Awami League leader like Nur Hossain, was his arch-rival in Narayanganj.